A tiny, rural Indiana school district that is desperate for funding will try to remain in operation next year by recruiting a bunch of students from China.
The taxpayer-funded district is the Union School Corporation in Modoc, Ind. (pop.: 196) — about 20 miles southwest of Muncie.
Chinese parents would pay the princely sum of $30,000 each for the children to attend the district’s efficient, one-building grade school, junior high and high school, reports The Star Press, a Muncie newspaper.
As of this September, the Union district enrolled 63 fewer students than it enrolled in February of the 2014-2015 academic year — a drop of 20 percent.
Consequently, the district is spending more cash than it receives by the state.
“It would severely lower the deficit if we could take 10 students,” local school board president Christa Ellis told The Star Press. “I don’t see any negatives that wouldn’t be outweighed by the positive.”
Union School Corp. superintendent Allan Hayne will travel to China next week — a journey of about 7,200 miles — to attend an education forum. The budget for Hayne’s expedition is $2,500.
The school district already has a smaller foreign-exchange program in place.
Under Indiana’s education funding formula, school districts receive a set amount of money for each enrolled student.
Districts must report enrollment on days each year. These critical days — one in September and one in February — are called “count days,” notes The Star Press.
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